David Shrigley: 'More than anything else, I need to laugh at things'

The offbeat comedy and homemade asethetic of David Shrigley's drawings burst on to the art scene in the early 90s and have spawned many imitators. Now he has a new string to his bow: self-help author. Can he be serious?

I'm feeling a little bit tired today; we have a new puppy. It is like having a baby. It's a miniature schnauzer. She's adorable but you have to get up at seven to take her out for a wee. It doesn't wash with me, early rising.

It seems a good thing to be doing a self-help book at 43, the age that men are most likely to kill themself. Was it prompted by a midlife crisis, ironic or otherwise?

This is the first book I've done that has a coherent theme. I made this big body of work last year and then I thought: what is this about? It seemed a good time to reflect on what my subject was after all this time. And I kind of thought it's about emotional anxiety…

I think what I do is really a view of psychosis written from the point of view of someone who is a bit mad but thinks everyone else is madder. I sat down and wrote text and lists of statements then I tried to match these statements with the drawings I had done. I was quite surprised that it wasn't less cohesive.

Did you reference other self-help books specifically? Did you browse the shelves?

No, I am always resistant to shopping as a starting point because things like internet shopping are actually the things that stop me making art. But you don't need to go very far. I spend quite a lot of time in airports, and I tend to look at the books and magazines there, and it is always "how to become a millionaire", or "how to get a grip on your life", or stuff about the Dalai Lama. I guess airports are the kinds of places where you think about changing your life, or not.

You said somewhere that if you weren't an artist you would be a psychologist – is that true?

I don't really know if that's true. More recently in response to that question I tend to say dentist. But I do have an interest in social sciences. Teaching at art school is a bit like Freudian psychotherapy I sometimes think, one-on-one tutorials, and the same rules apply in the sense that the student has to heal themselves.

Have you ever been tempted by therapy?

If I felt I needed it, I would. But I wouldn't do it to find out what my work was about. I guess I'm quite a functional person. I relate pretty well to my wife and my dog. I have some friends. I guess I'm doing OK.

Not really, though there was a lot of pressure around the Hayward show. But I've never thought about my career like that; I've partly just tried to make a living. I do a lot of things that aren't considered fine art: ads and T-shirts and pop videos and stuff. But the only arena I wouldn't like to be excluded from is the world of fine art, just because that is where you are most free. If you do a record cover for a band it can be a bit of a pain in the arse, to be honest, though it sounds glamorous. The fact that I am embraced to a certain extent by the art world is something I really cherish.

You come from a quite devout Christian family. When did you start to see the absurdity of belief systems?

My parents are both Christians and my sister too, but you wouldn't know if you met them. I guess that thinking about religious belief might be something that has shaped me but if this book is satirising anything it is just the idea of self-help books. The ridiculousness of creating a template for living based on nothing at all.

Are you a new year's resolution maker and breaker?

I'm a bit health-obsessed now I am in my 40s. I do yoga and running and try to eat a bit better, all that. I am prone to a faddy diet. Today I was thinking I'm a bit tired, and I found myself wondering if the broad bean paté in the fridge would see me through.

Aren't we by nature superstitious and credulous beings, however rational we believe ourselves to be?

We tend to have an idea of wellbeing and good mental health as an absolute, a constant. But it is really arrived at by a sort of ongoing consensus. You find yourself asking your partner: do you think I'm mad? The correct answer to this question is, of course: no, darling. But it would be quite easy to get the wrong end of the stick. In a way, I think, in terms of wisdom, the most banal truisms are the most useful: "do the right thing", "whatever works", stuff like that.

Do you think of yourself as a depressive?

I don't like to, and certainly it is nothing I have been treated for, but at certain times I do feel it. And I have known people close to me who have suffered and undergone treatment. I understand what that is. It is so prevalent. I have had a taste of it, but usually if I get some sleep and go for a run I'm fine. More than anything else I know I need to laugh at things. In recent years I've started to go and see live comedy, and I really enjoy it. It's the most joyous thing to laugh for an hour. My work is comic but it's not its only purpose. But there is something essential and divine about laughing with a group of human beings.

It's a lonely business sometimes, I imagine, you and the blank sheet of paper. Do you ever get fed up, working on your own?

No, I'm happy to amuse myself. But I'm aware that after a certain point I do go a bit crazy. If I work late in the evening and my wife is away, say, my brain goes into overdrive and I find myself at four in the afternoon in my pyjamas having not washed or slept or eaten.

Do you feel you are getting wiser?

I feel there's a certain tipping point whereby you are young and foolish and then you get to your 40s and you are supposed to be wise, and then you get to your 50s and you're a bit cranky. And after that you're a funny old man telling the same jokes and stories. I have a feeling I am close to the wisest I have ever been, but I don't think it will last…